Marc Vellrath, FSG Chairman and CEO, offers his opinion in the The Wall Street Journal letter, “Economist Subsidies Make No Sense, Especially Now.”
Marc Vellrath, Ph.D.
Lafayette, Calif.
Politicians know that their constituents support budget cuts for everyone else. Rather than help make the case for less federal government spending, Gary Becker and James Heckman argue that economists should be part of a protected class due to the positive externalities of federal research funding. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac modeled their efforts at funding independent “economic research” on the Fed, with taxpayers unknowingly paying for both, and we know how that turned out.